"STRONG MEDICINE"
Is there something in your life that needs to change?
The doctor says, "In order to survive, you must change your eating habits!" The financial advisor says, "In order to make the money you want you must change your strategy." The coach says, "In order to achieve your goals, you must make some changes in the way you train." The counselor says, "In order to save your marriage, you must make a change." The pastor says, "God says in order to grow up and become like Jesus, we must be willing to continually change our ways."
“Change!” - That can be some strong medicine that none of us likes to hear and even harder to follow.
Nothing is harder than changing when we are set in our ways and our thinking. It's a trap into which we all fall and get deeply tangled. We don't mean to fall into the trap necessarily, we just get into a pattern or routine and feel comfortable within it and the next thing we know we are trapped and we'll do about everything we can before we will change.
It’s like the trap of procrastination. We feel comfortable with the way things are so we put off needed activities as long as possible and sometimes too long.
When you think about it, getting comfortable and refusing to change is refusing to grow, to stretch, and to be open to God doing new things in our lives. Since life continues to moves on at a very rapid pace, if we are refusing to change and are comfortable with things remaining as they always have, we are really falling backwards.
God used the experiences of Israel in the Old Testament to bring out lessons for all of us and one was the lesson of "STRONG MEDICINE" – in the way He described His people.
Deuteronomy 32:15 But Israel soon became fat and unruly; the people grew heavy, plump, and stuffed! Then they abandoned the God who had made them; they made light of the Rock of their salvation.
Ezekiel 3:7 I am sending you to the people of Israel, but they won't listen to you any more than they listen to me! For the whole lot of them are hard-hearted and stubborn.
God uses several means to administer this medicine that we need to change, These include circumstances, His Word - The Bible, and godly people around us.
How many times have circumstances required you to make a change? The Bible is full of examples of people who made changes because they had to change in order to survive. Then as you look back upon the story you realize that was the means God used to get them into the place where He needed them to be in order to bless them. A good example is the story of Joseph where God allowed him to be sold by his brother into slavery, tossed into jail, only to be elevated to second in command in Egypt and used by God to save thousands of people from an upcoming famine. God still does that today with all of us. He uses circumstances to get us to change.
The Bible is constantly calling on us to change for the better. The theological term is sanctification. The more we learn and the more we submit to God, the more we are constantly allowing Him to change our attitudes and our actions
2 Corinthians 7:9 Now I am glad I sent it, not because it hurt you, but because the pain caused you to have remorse and change your ways. It was the kind of sorrow God wants his people to have, so you were not harmed by us in any way.
As hard as those changes are to make, the more those changes become channels of joy and blessing in our lives.
The other method God uses to help us to change are the godly relationships we have. God can use a good friend, a spouse, a counselor, pastor, coach - anyone who cares enough to administer the strong medicine that calls for us to make some changes.
Proverbs 27:17 As iron sharpens iron, a friend sharpens a friend.
Proverbs 27:6 Wounds from a friend are better than many kisses from an enemy.
Regardless of how we get this strong medicine administered to us, the way we respond is critical to our growth and success. Are you willing to change? … or are you stuck in a rut?
Godspeed,
Bob Brubaker
Bob is the pastor of Christ Community Presbyterian Church, Clearwater, Florida. See www.ccpconline.org for church information and listen to Bob’s latest sermons.
PowerBreak News:
All tax deductible donations to PowerBreak can be made through Christ Community Presbyterian Church, 2310 Nursery Road, Clearwater, FL 33764. Please note “PowerBreak” on your check.
